


the falling rain

by saradathesalad



Series: the shattering world [1]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Avatar Sokka, Mistaken Identity, Multi, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-16
Updated: 2020-06-16
Packaged: 2021-03-04 02:55:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,460
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24756631
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saradathesalad/pseuds/saradathesalad
Summary: Ever since Sokka's mother had been killed for being a bender, for him and Katara being benders, he'd tried to ignore his powers. Katara had no problem embracing her abilities, but he, he couldn't. How could he, when they had been what had gotten his mother killed? But everything changed the day his sister decided cracking open an iceberg was the New Hot Thing and releases an airbender from one hundred years ago who is determined to get Sokka to be a proper Avatar. Now they've got the Fire Nation on their trail as the three of them head to the Northern Water Tribe in an attempt to get Sokka some Avatar Training so he can Defeat The Fire Nation. That is, of course, if along the way Aang and Katara can convince Sokka that being a bender isn't a curse. And why is everyone convinced Aang is the Avatar?
Relationships: Katara/Yue (Avatar), Sokka & The Gaang (Avatar), Sokka/Zuko (Avatar)
Series: the shattering world [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1790359
Comments: 19
Kudos: 137





	the falling rain

**Author's Note:**

> me: has 5 wips  
> me: okay how about another

Sokka had been five years old the first time he had used his bending powers. At first, it had only been waterbending. His parents had been a mix of joyous and terrified for their son. His waterbending, while a great gift, was also a target on his back for anyone from the fire nation. Nonetheless, they had encouraged his bending and when his sister, Katara, had also shown a skill for waterbending, they had been even more proud, and even more terrified.

It was when he accidentally created a blast of fire whilst in an argument with an older boy, when he had done  _ firebending _ , his parents came to the realization that their son was not an ordinary bender.  _ “The Avatar,”  _ people would say in hushed whispers. Sokka hadn’t known, really, what they’d meant by that. What he had known was that, suddenly, people treated him a bit different. 

The sudden reverence had Sokka, who was seven at the time, a bit confused, but he enjoyed it nonetheless. No older boys mocked him anymore, and his parents seemed very proud of him, even if they took to talking in hushed whispers at night when they had put Katara and him to bed, and gave him worried looks out of the corner of their eyes.

“You’re very special,” his mom had told him, “You’re the Avatar, which means you can control all four elements. That means that one day, you will be able to stop the Fire Nation and bring balance back to the world. But that means that you’ll be in danger, there will be people wanting to stop you, to hurt you. So you must become strong, so that you can survive and stop the Fire Nation.”

Sokka hadn’t understood then how being able to make fire with his hands, or blasts of air with his feet, would help him stop the Fire Nation. His parents and other people told him he would be able to control the earth too, but Sokka lived on the ice and had never encountered enough actual dirt for him to earthbend. And so life went on in the Southern Water Tribe. Sokka and his sister practised their bending, though without proper teachers did not manage more than basics. They lived happy lives.

But, when Sokka was ten, the Fire Nation came after hearing rumours of a waterbender still alive at the South Pole. That was the day when Sokka finally understood what his mom had meant all those years ago, about defeating the Fire Nation and becoming strong. It was also the day that Sokka lost his mother while she protected him and Katara from detection.

Later, after his father had swept him and Katara back into their igloo, had fed them and explained to them that their mother had been killed. After Katara had told him, in a hushed voice, what she had overheard from the Fire Nation Soldier’s conversation with their mother about waterbenders at the South Pole, Sokka made himself two promises. First, that one day he would defeat the Fire Nation. Second, that he would never use his bending powers again so that no one else would be in danger because of him. 

Katara didn’t understand it. No matter how many times Sokka tried to dissuade her from using her waterbending, she wouldn’t listen. “Sokka,” she’d say condescendingly, “If we get attacked by the Fire Nation wouldn’t it be better to have a waterbender on hand to put out any fires they may start? And wouldn’t it be even better if we had the  _ Avatar _ around to help us defeat them?” 

Sokka had stopped trying after a while. Katara was determined to do what she felt was right and he couldn’t really stop her, besides, his father and grandmother always encouraged Katara’s waterbending. Whenever he heard their praise for her powers, he wanted to scream at them.  _ This is what got mom killed!  _ he wanted to shout,  _ Why are you putting Katara in danger? _

He never said anything.

When, three years after his mother’s death, his father announced that he and the other men of the tribe older than fourteen would be going to the Earth Kingdom to help in the fight against the Fire Nation, Sokka spent the three weeks between the announcement and the departure begging his father to let him come with. 

Hakoda was many things. A chief, a warrior, an exceptional penguin sledder, but he was also a father. He would not let his son, who, while a decent enough fighter, was still far too young and inexperienced, join the fight against the Fire Nation. He could not have that on his conscience. He would protect Sokka and Katara for as long as he could and so he left Sokka behind with instructions to look after the village in his absence. 

And so Sokka stayed behind in the South Pole, dutifully hunting for the village, trying to ‘train’ the little cretins that would one day be the village warriors and avoided doing any sort of bending. He had a simple life, with hardly any variations. 

  
  
  


This continued for a further two years until one day, while out fishing, Katara’s continued insistence at using her  _ stupid _ waterbending powers had once again landed them in a life-threatening situation. Stuck on a piece of ice with no boat, Sokka was at a loss. The only way they would be saved was if someone from the village came looking for them, and that could take hours. They would likely freeze before anyone reached them.

“Now look what your stupid magic has done!” he yelled at Katara, “Trust a stupid little girl to get us stranded on an ice sheet in the middle of the ocean!”   
  


Katara’s face contorted in anger and Sokka quickly realized that maybe antagonising his sister and only company on this ice sheet probably wasn’t the greatest plan in the world. 

“Oh I am so sick of your stupid sexism!” she yelled, her arms flailing about, “You’re always so full of arrogance and prejudice,” she had begun to make the ice sheet rock, controlling the water in her anger while Sokka watched on with wide eyes, “And you call my bending magic like you can’t do it too!” the ice sheet came dangerously close to tipping. 

“Katara!” Sokka yelled, hoping to calm his raging sister.

“No, I’m not finished yet! You ignore your duties as the Avatar, you refuse to bend, why? What is wrong with you, can’t you see that you HAVE to learn how to be the Avatar?” this yell was accompanied by a massive crack, as the iceberg behind Katara split in half, and a sudden wave pushing them backwards. This managed to quiet Katara’s yells.

The siblings stared wide-eyed at each other. “Did  _ I  _ do that?” Katara asked in wonderment. Sokka could only nod mutely. Just when Sokka thought their situation couldn’t get any weirder, a massive glowing bubble emerged from the ocean. No, not a bubble, another iceberg.

“Great, you summoned an iceberg. Congrats on being weird, Katara,” Sokka said, standing up slowly. 

Katara shot him a glare and approached the glowing iceberg, which had a boy frozen inside it. That made Sokka pause. A boy frozen in an iceberg? And there was a giant bison of some sort frozen with him. What kind of iceberg was this?

“We have to help him!” Katara exclaimed, running over. “Maybe I can use my bending to crack it open like I did with that other iceberg? Sokka, can you help me?”

“You know I don’t bend Katara. Besides, he’s probably long dead,” Sokka told his sister gently. 

“Doesn’t matter, we have to try. Please, Sokka, he might need our help,” she begged.

Sokka was torn. He had sworn never to bend again but… This boy may still be alive and Sokka and Katara could help him. He nodded. 

“Alright Katara,” he said, “Hope I remember how to do this.”

Katara smiled brightly at him. The duo worked in tandem, trying to get into a rhythm to crack the iceberg open. After ten minutes of no success, Sokka was ready to give up. 

“Why did I think I could do this, I haven’t done waterbending in five years!” he exclaimed, turning his back on the iceberg and throwing his hands in the air.

This was, of course, when the iceberg cracked open. Sokka turned around, thinking perhaps his frustration had been what had done it, only to reveal Katara standing next to the iceberg, holding his club. So she had resorted to physical force, shows how useful bending is. 

The crack let out a sudden burst of air and Katara stumbled backwards as the iceberg blew open. Sokka caught her, closing his eyes against the blinding light the iceberg was now letting off into the sky. What had they just unleashed?

A small boy climbed out of the crater that was once an iceberg and immediately fell down into Katara’s arms. Sokka, naturally, began to poke at the boy’s head. For security reasons. Katara slapped his spear away, with a glare that could probably kill a lesser human. Sokka stopped.

The boy’s eyes flicked open. Grey, like the Air Nomad’s had been said to have been. The boy’s whole outfit looked like something an Air Nomad would wear. Frozen in an iceberg under the sea, wearing clothes that looked like they belonged to an extinct nation, who was this kid? Sokka was suspicious.

The boy’s eyes seemed to focus on Katara, who was still holding him as he woke up.

“I have something important to ask you,” the boy murmured to Katara.

“Of course, what is it?” she replied.

The boy looked at her listlessly for a moment, before exclaiming energetically, “Do you wanna go penguin sledging with me?”

Katara gave him a confused look, before agreeing. The boy then proceeded to use what seemed to be airbending to lift himself off the ground. Sokka closed his eyes. What was going on with his life?

The boy introduced himself as Aang, an airbender from the Southern Air Temple. Sokka quite frankly didn’t want to believe it. Things only got weirder with the introduction of Aang’s ‘flying bison’ named Appa, who sneezed rather rudely on Sokka. But at least the bison could swim them back to the village. 

The awe of the tribe had not been what Sokka had been expecting when they’d arrived with Aang. He’d been expecting suspicion, not a feast hosted in the Aang’s honour. Not that Sokka was complaining about a feast, but really, why was no one else suspicious of the boy?

Sokka was unsurprised when the boy set off the beacon signalling the Fire Nation, but everyone else was. 

“Give us the Avatar,” the Fire Nation soldier demanded. Sokka tensed, his grip on his boomerang tightening. How had they known? How had they found out? Sokka hadn’t even done waterbending in five years, that attempt at the iceberg didn’t even work, so there was no way they had seen anything. Maybe someone in the village had said something? But no, no one in the village would dare to say a word to the Fire Nation after all they had done.

“Where is he?” the soldier asked, looking past a rather confused Sokka, “He would be about one hundred and twelve years old, a master of all four elements,” he said, as if the Water Tribes had never heard of the  _ Avatar  _ before, “And he would probably dress like an airbender, or have airbender tattoos.”

An  _ airbender _ ? This soldier couldn’t possibly be talking about Aang, could he? But Aang wasn’t the Avatar, Sokka was. Though, nobody had ever heard of the demise of the Air Nomads Avatar. And Aang had caused a pretty bright light when the iceberg had cracked. Was it possible this soldier wasn’t here for Sokka, but rather for Aang?

Sokka didn’t spend anymore time thinking about it, instead charging forward to fight the soldier. He knew, logically, that he had no chance against this army, when he was a barely-trained fifteen year old who hadn’t had anyone to spar with in over two year, and his opponent was a high-ranking soldier on a fire-nation ship. But he wasn’t going to give up without a fight. The fight did not last very long, could barely be called a fight. Sokka was quickly defeated and cast aside to watch helplessly as the soldier threatened his village and his gram-gram with death if the Avatar wasn’t revealed.

Sokka was about to stand up and proclaim that he was the Avatar, to protect his village and family, when Aang came riding in from behind on a penguin and bowled the Fire Nation soldier over.

Aang’s arrival and airbending skills caused the soldier to exclaim, “You’re the airbender? You’re the Avatar?” 

Aang neither confirmed nor denied his words, but instead kept circling the firebender as he went on a tangent about how long he had been searching for the Avatar. Once the fighting began, Aang showed some skill, but upon seeing the fire nearly reach the tribesmen, he seemed to waver.

“If I go with you,” he said to the soldier, “Will you leave this village alone?”

Katara gasped, and she and Sokka shared a look.

“I will,” said the soldier.

Aang was carted away to the sounds of Katara’s begging. Sokka hung his head in shame. He’d not only failed to protect his tribe, but he had also been too cowardly to expose himself as the Avatar, instead letting Aang be captured by the Fire Nation.

A resolve settled over Sokka. They had to get him back. Once the Fire Nation ship had retreated far enough from the village, Sokka began to gather supplies. He found a boat and brought it to the water's edge where Katara stood, watching the ship disappear into the horizon.

“We have to go after him Sokka, we can’t just let Aang sacrifice himself for us. I know you haven’t trusted Aang and that he led the Fire Nation here but. I can’t stand the thought of him being trapped with them forever,” she said, with the same passion and drive she had when she was trying to get Sokka to bend. 

“Yeah,” Sokka said, “We do. But I don’t think this boat I got us is gonna do the trick.” 

Katara turned to face him, and upon seeing the supplies he had gathered, threw herself into his arms. 

“Thank you Sokka,” she said, once she released him, “But I do think you’re right about the boat.”

The duo stood in thoughtful silence for a moment before Katara exclaimed, “Appa! He can take us! He’s a flying bison after all.”

  
She seemed so proud of her solution, but Sokka knew they didn’t actually know how to get the flying bison to actually fly. As he was about to tell his sister this, Gram-Gram approached, bearing more supplies, and also wise advice about their futures and destinies.

“Don’t be afraid of yourself, Sokka. You may be the last chance this world has to stop the Fire Nation’s domination,” were her last words to Sokka. He had nodded and told her he wouldn’t let her down. She had given him a smile, then shoved him after his sister, who was already searching for Appa.

Finding Appa was no problem after saying goodbye to Gram-Gram. In fact, it seemed that Appa was also looking for them. This enthusiasm to be a part of their rescue team did not seem to extend to enthusiasm for flying. They spent the first ten minutes trying to get Appa to take to the skies before Sokka remembered the phrase Aang had been yelling. 

The next time they saw Aang was about half an hour later, once they had finally caught up to the Fire Nation ship. Their relief was short-lived, as just as they arrived, Aang fell into the water and did not resurface.

“No,” Sokka muttered, shocked. Had his cowardice gotten Aang killed. No, we wouldn’t allow it. He felt a strange power come over him, and he blacked out. When he came to, Appa had landed on the deck of the ship, which was full of water and absent of the leading Fire Nation soldier. 

“What?” he said, jumping off of Appa’s back, then noticed Katara cradling Aang in a similar way as she had been doing when Aang had first crawled out of the iceberg. 

“Nice waterbending, Katara,” Aang said weakly. Before either Katara or Sokka could respond to correct him, Aang continued, “Could you please get my staff?”

Sokka nodded and ran off to get the staff from the other side of the deck, as Katara helped Aang onto Appa’s back. Sokka noticed the soldier who he had fought earlier trying to climb back onto the ship. Immediately, Sokka ran over and poked him in the head with Aang’s staff, knocking him back down onto the chains hanging from the side of the ship. Sokka smirked, and ran off, only to get his feet frozen by Katara.

“Katara, why!” he yelled at his sister, then noticed the Fire Nation soldiers that were approaching her. Before Sokka could do anything, Katara managed to freeze them in gigantic ice cubes. Internally cheering for his sister, Sokka worked at getting his feet free. Once he had managed that, he darted over to Appa and managed to climb aboard just as more Fire Nation soldiers began to swarm the deck.

Their escape was narrow, but with the help of Aang’s airbending, they managed to avoid the massive flaming balls launched at them and trap the Fire Nation ship under a pile of ice. The cheers from the little group aboard Appa could likely be heard by the Fire Nation soldiers below, and that made the cheering all the louder.

But there were still some more serious matters to address. 

“Why would you pretend to be the Avatar? You could’ve been killed!” Sokka yelled at Aang, once they were out of hearing range of the warship. 

“He was looking for the Avatar and thought they were an airbender. Since there was no Avatar at the South Pole that I knew of, or any other airbenders, I knew I had to step in to save your village. Pretending to be the Avatar wasn’t too hard and nobody hurt me,” Aang told Sokka, as if being captured by the Fire Nation was no big deal.

Sokka winced. This twelve-year-old boy that they’d met earlier today had done what Sokka had been unable to do. He had stepped up as Avatar, had saved Sokka’s tribe from harm. Why had Sokka been unable to help? Why hadn’t he just told that Fire Nation soldier that he was the Avatar and saved Aang from being captured? He was a coward, that’s why. 

“That’s not true,” Katara said suddenly, breaking Sokka out of his melancholic musing.

“What isn’t?” Aang asked. He looked confused, but Sokka knew exactly where this was going. Katara was going to tell Aang that Sokka was the Avatar.

“The Avatar is at the South Pole. Or rather, he was. Sokka is the Avatar,” she told Aang while glaring at Sokka. She’d never understood why he ignored his so-called ‘Great Destiny’. 

“You’re the Avatar?” he asked, looking at Sokka, “Was it you who waterbended me out of the ocean? Why didn’t you say anything?”

“Because my idiot brother over here thinks that if he ignores the fact that he’s the Avatar, it will go away,” Katara said scathingly. 

“You can’t ignore your powers, Sokka,” Aang said, a serious look slipping onto his face, “The world needs the Avatar right now. You need to train. We could go to the Northern Water Tribe, so you and your sister can get waterbending training, then after that, we can go to the Earth Kingdom to find you an earthbending teacher, then after that we can- oh. Well, I’m sure we can find you a firebending teacher somewhere. And I can teach you airbending. What do you say?”

Looking into the pleading eyes of Aang, the narrowed eyes of his sister, thinking back on the near-destruction of his village earlier in the day, thinking of how his bending helped free Aang, Sokka knew what he had to do. 

“Alright,” he said, “Let’s head to the Northern Water Tribe.”

Aang and Katara’s cheers could probably be heard by the Fire Nation ship that was no doubt tracking them, but Sokka couldn’t bring himself to care. Maybe he could figure this Avatar thing out, with the help of his sister and the weird airbender they’d found in an iceberg. He smiled slightly. The Fire Nation didn’t know what was coming for them. 

**Author's Note:**

> Lots of exposition here. Next chapter will have less of it.
> 
> I'm looking for a beta reader, if anyone is interested. You can contact me on Tumblr (down below) or just via a private message on ao3. If you're interested please contact me asap. Thanks :)
> 
> I got a tumblr and we can chat about Avatar and stuff at [saradathesalad](https://saradathesalad.tumblr.com)


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